Jason Silva: brands and people have to think exponentially

Media artist documentary filmmaker and philosopher Jason Silva’s energy is contagious and relentless. Mind you, he is just in his early thirties, and already he is wow-ing everybody with his quick, recumbent eidetic mind. He likes to call himself an idea-jockey. Hearing him talk is like listening to Wikipedia, in 3D, on steroids, in fast-forward.

Silva described in the fastest English this side of the asteroid belt that the world we live in today leaps through an exponential progression of technology. Tech is killing the perceived time lag between the imaginable (what we can imagine) and that what we are able to create: ‘We are rapidly converging to become a civilization of networked minds that will transcend all previous limits. As Erik Davis wrote in Techgnosis, -When everything becomes linked with everything else, matter becomes mind- ‘

His ideas certainly match nicely with Kurzweil’s exponentiallity, and with the incredible 3D printing rage that seems to have taken over Austin Texas by storm this year. When an idea can be printed, in 3D… the leap between mind and matter becomes very very small indeed, and one can see how this will dramatically change the world we live in.

‘With the coming overlapping revolutions in biotechnology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, the instruments to remake the world will be in everybody’s hands.’

Jason Silva believes the challenge for people and brands is to stop thinking linear, but to start thinking exponentially. Exponential thinking is parallel, and allows individuals and brands alike to recombine fast moving different ideas, coming from different disciplines. Embracing current and future possibilities across a plethora of different specialties and darker corners of science will allow surviving and excelling in a world where nothing can be taken for granted anymore.

On the marketing and media place, Silva notices in the video-interview I had with him that “attention” is becoming a currency, an endangered species, a new limited resource. The ability to capture and catch people’s interest in a brands conversation will depended on how exponential that brand is willing to think and act. Old school media, where we put everything in boxes and pre-chewed messages will definitely not get us in the charts anymore.